None of these U.S. Government grants are made up.

Sarcasm Detector

This Secret Service project has earned a lot of media attention. Grant page.

NASA Needs You

... to develop an improved system for turning astronaut pee into drinkable water. Grant page.

US Navy: Marine Mammal Surveys

“Any potential offeror must possess a permit covering the attachment of dart tags on the species of interest which include beaked whales.” Grant page.

Survey of Deep Sea Coral and Sponges

“operate an ROV system to optically image the sea floor on, more or less, a 24 hour basis and collect specimens for shipboard and laboratory analyses.” Grant page.

Studies on Malaria in Cambodia

Will “also support training of scientists from Cambodia and scientists from the NIH sponsored Malaria Research and Training Center in Bamako, Mali.” Grant page.

Care and Maintenance of a U.S. Government Horse Herd

The government seeks a contractor who can provide: Provision of husbandry and veterinary services to maintain a herd of 90 to 100 horses; Immunization of horses with toxins to achieve hyperimmune serum titers; Collection of plasma from hyperimmune horses; Shipment of collected plasma to a storage facility. Grant page.

Cancer Among Atomic Bomb Survivors

The NIH would like to know why some people do better at surviving radiation. Grant page.

DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge

‘Top computer security experts test their skill head-to-head in competitive “Capture the Flag” contests.[…]During a final competition event, automated Cyber Reasoning Systems will compete against each other in real time. This event will be held in a public setting and documented for research purposes.’ Grant page.

Sensor Order Contract for Receivers, Apertures, and Testing of Electronic Subsystems (SOCRATES)

Fun with acronyms Grant page.

Tree Climbers and Handlers for Bald Eagle Monitoring

“Contractor is to climb all safe, reasonably accessible bald eagle nest trees within and immediately adjacent to three national parks, hand capture and bag the nestlings, and safely convey them to the ground for sampling.” Grant page.

Missile Defense in Interesting Countries

The Missile Defense Agency has hankering to deploy ballistic missile destructors in Poland, Romania, and Hawaii. Grant page.

Drug Relapses in Rats

These rats were set up to fail. Grant page.

Monitoring of Endangered Sea Turtles

We think it’s great that the Air Force wants to pay for monitoring endangered turtles and their “hatching success”. We just wonder what the backstory might be. Grant page.

Humanoid Robots

“These humanoid robots and associated technologies can be used in hazardous and remote environments here on earth including applications in oil and gas, fire and rescue, post disaster recovery, and combat operations.” Grant page.

NASA Exoskeleton

“improve the current exoskeleton design to create a fully customizable device whose dual-use technology will improve life here on Earth as well as keep astronauts healthy.” Grant page.

BATMAN!

Now funded by the U.S. Air Force! Grant page.

Field Tapeworm Studies

These particular tapeworms are grown in immunosuppressed hamsters. Don’t get excited: the contract already has a Peruvian University’s name on it. Grant page.

Development of Rotary Subwoofer

Hard to figure out what this is about, but it doesn’t matter, because unless the name of your company is “Eminent Technology,” you’re not getting this contract. Grant page.

Persistent Surveillance and Dissemination Systems of Systems Mission Video Dissemination System MVDS

Posted by the Defense Information Systems Agency. That’s the actual title. Grant page.

Restoring Active Memory (RAM)

“DARPA seeks new methods for analysis and decoding of neural signals in order to understand how neural stimulation could be applied to facilitate recovery of memory encoding following brain injury. Ultimately, it is desired to develop a prototype implantable neural device that enables recovery of memory in a human clinical population.” Grant page.

Human Laboratory Paradigms

Here is a direct quote from the NIH announcement: “The National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute of Alcohol and Alcohol (NIAAA), seeks capability statements from interested and qualified potential laboratory sites capable of conducting human laboratory paradigms on non-treatment seeking individuals with alcohol use disorders that will examine the impact of putative alcoholism therapeutics on key components of alcohol use disorders on a task order basis.” Got that? Grant page.

Systems-Based Neurotechnology for Emerging Therapies

“The burden of psychiatric and neurologic disease in military personnel is growing and unlikely to diminish over the next decade or more.” Grant page.

Wild Horse and Burro Sterilization or Contraception

Apparently the rhythm method was not working. Grant page.

3D Printed Rocket Engines

For the Air Force to “launch critical assets into Earth orbit.” They use the term “additive manufacturing.” Grant page.

Research & Development for Falling Man

While some parts of the government are shut down, the parts that search for new and creative ways to spend your money remain hard at work. Here is the DOE soliciting help in designing a crash-test dummy to simulate someone falling onto explosives. Yes, by all means let’s get that sorted out. Grant page.

Enhancing Special Operations Forces Soldier Performance

The US Special Operations Command wants, among other things, enhancement of “mental acuity and performance, and neuro-cognitive enhancements.” Grant page.

Anti-Plaque Chewing Gum

Funded by the US Army. Yes, that US Army. Grant page.

Mouse Surveillance

First, it’s not as funny as it sounds, and, second, it’s all locked up by Charles River Laboratories, Inc., so don’t bother. Grant page.

So...Not So Firm?

In an amendment containing answers to offeror questions we find a response that only a bureaucrat could love: “There is a firm decision date but it is subject to change.” Grant page.

Characterization of Drug Use in Food Producing Animals

Specifically, chickens and turkeys. It’s not as funny as it sounds, as it is really about drugs used in poultry production. Not about chickens and turkeys getting high out behind the barn. Sorry. Grant page.

Zebrafish Breeding

“The Zebrafish Breeding Program is rearing Zebrafish embryos and exposing the larvae to multiple environments.” What kind of environments? Well, it’s for the Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense. So you can imagine. Grant page.

Cocaine Treatment Medications in Non-human Primates

“Rhesus monkeys will be trained in either drug discrimination or self-administration procedures using cocaine or possibly other drugs of abuse.” Grant page.

System of Systems Element Simulation (SSES)

Yesssss..... Grant page.

Tactical Biometric Devices

The Army wants some, and they want it cheap. Grant page.

Hidden Rooms

Delving deep into this proposal invitation from the Special Operations Command reveals their interest in technologies for the “detection of hidden rooms and chambers”. Grant page.

SHARP

It’s an acronym for “Strengthening Human Adaptive Reasoning and Problem-solving”, a program of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It seems the intelligence agencies are deluged with data (imagine that!) and need help training people to make sense of it all. Grant page.

Our Nation's Pavement

“reduce the short and long term costs and improve the efficiency of the nation’s highway pavements.” Grant page.

Mouse Heat Stroke

It looks like the University of Florida has managed to become the Government’s go-to contractor when it comes to giving heat stroke to mice. Grant page.

Smart Home Artificial Intelligence

The Dept. of Veterans Affairs needs very much to pay for the development of “smart home” technology “with artificial intelligence, natural language processing, human and computer interaction artificial dialogue,” but they’re only going to pay the “Florida Institute for Human and machine Cognition” to do it. Grant page.

Advanced Modular Manikin

The Air Force wants one to help in military medical education. Grant page.

Torpedo Soundproofing Removal

If you have the expertise required to remove this stuff (made from neoprene with embedded lead shot) from our nation’s torpedoes, you know who you are. Grant page.

Unmanned Sub to Look at Coral

Can you build a remotely operated vehicle to examine and collect samples of red coral off the coast of Alaska? Then the government wants to talk to you. Grant page.

Talk to us
RSS icon Twitter icon